Winners Announced of Khan Academy Competition

Winners Announced of International Competition Designed to Identify the
Next Generation of Health Educators

NEW YORK, February 11, 2014 – The Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence, Khan Academy, and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing are pleased to announce that 14 individuals have been selected to join a select group of educators working to transform how health education is delivered across disciplines around the globe. The partnering organizations launched an international competition last fall to generate interest among health profession students, faculty, and practitioners in creating innovative healthcare tutorials with videos and exercises, which will be made available for free through the Khan Academy website. This content will support graduates of nursing programs in preparation for the NCLEX-RN exam.

The competition received almost 100 submissions from individuals around the world, emerging from over 60 hospitals and academic institutions. Competition submissions represented the disciplines of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, public health, and graduate studies in biological science. The competition winners include:

Akbarshakh Akhmerov, Cornell University

Adrian Anzaldua, Stanford University

Katie Baraki, University of Utah

Joshua Cohen, University of Miami

Amy Fan, University of Virginia

Jannah George, TootRN

Gricelda Gomez, Harvard University

A.J. Grieco, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Nimra Khan, University of Illinois

Ian Mannarino, University of California – Irvine

Lisa Miklush, Gonzaga University

Srinivas Prasad, Wuesthoff Medical Center

Leslie Samuel, Andrews University

Nauroz Syed, Johns Hopkins University

“Khan Academy is excited to welcome this diverse group of content creators who possess the right mix of energy and expertise needed to advance our mission to provide a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere,” said Rishi Desai, MD, MPH, Program Lead for Medical Partnerships at Khan Academy. “The dynamic content developed by this group will serve as a rich resource for health professionals and the public worldwide.”

“This competition clearly captured the attention of an international audience of health educators with an eye for evolving traditional teaching methods for contemporary audiences,” said Darlene Curley, RN, MS, FAAN, Executive Director, Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence. “We are pleased to support this effort to spark innovation and enthusiasm around using technology to develop instructional content that can benefit all healthcare providers, including nursing students preparing for the national licensing exam.”

“The collaborating organizations are committed to providing cutting edge teaching tools that will serve as a resource for ongoing learning and refreshment for nurses and other healthcare providers,” added Jane Kirschling, PhD, RN, FAAN, President of AACN.

The competition winners have been invited to further sharpen their technical skills by participating in a training camp with Khan Academy educators on March 2-9, 2014 in California. To read more about the winners, see www.khanacademy.org/about/health-competition.

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About the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence
The Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence, established in 2006 by Barbara and Donald Jonas, is dedicated to improving healthcare by advancing nursing scholarship, leadership and innovation. Its two main programs are the Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar Program, which aims to address the dire shortage of nursing faculty by preparing nurses with doctoral degrees to step into this critical role, and the Jonas Veterans Healthcare Program, which seeks to improve the health of veterans by supporting doctoral-level nursing candidates committed to advancing veterans’ healthcare. These programs currently support more than 250 doctoral scholars nationwide.

About Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a 501(c) 3 non-profit with a mission of providing a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere. Khan Academy provides free online educational materials (e.g., practice exercises, instructional videos, dashboard analytics, teacher tools) that support personalized education for users of all ages in a scalable way. In the last two years, the organization has delivered over 330 million lessons and 6 billion exercise problems. Currently, it has 10 million users per month and over 4 million exercise problems completed each day. Khan Academy covers subjects from basic Math to college level Biology and Art History.

About the American Association of Colleges of Nursing
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) is the national voice for university and four-year college education programs in nursing. Representing more than 740 member schools of nursing at public and private institutions nationwide, AACN's educational, research, governmental advocacy, data collection, publications, and other programs work to establish quality standards for bachelor's- and graduate-degree nursing education, assist deans and directors to implement those standards, influence the nursing profession to improve health care, and promote public support of baccalaureate and graduate nursing education, research, and practice.